DTS Play-Fi has always had a mission statement of protecting and preserving audio in a wireless environment while providing the best possible listneing experience. Today DTS takes that one step further by adding the capability transmit and render High Resolution audio files at full resolution up to 24 bit / 96 kHz.

Users need only open a new zone, and tap on the Hi-Res button to enable what is know as Critical Listening mode in the new zone module. The Play-Fi app will automatically display products that are capable of accurately rendering Hi-Res audio, and allow the user to then select their single Play-Fi product of choice and send audio to it from any of the Play-Fi embedded services, of which users can select local Music or Media Servers to play Hi-Res files.

This features is enabled on partner products from Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, and Phorus to start, with Wren Audio, MartinLogan, Paradigm, Anthem and future partners to join by June 2016.

Posted On

4.30.2016

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I am using your service in conjunction with Tidal, via a Paradigm PW Link. Do you have any idea when I will be able to avail myself of your Critical Listening mode with my current combination of hardware and streaming service? Thank you.

Still, with Critical Listening on, I still only get 48 kHz from my PW Link to my external DAC from material that I know is 96 or 88 kHz, such as Beyoncé’s album on Tidal. How come? I have a feeling that PW Link resamples everything to 48 kHz no matter the source.

For Tidal in particular, we’ll play back any content they have on their server, but for the select group of albums/tracks that they have at “Master” quality, we can’t play those natively because we don’t support MQA. MQA does however have a feature that allows us to unpack the content into CD Quality FLAC files, basically whatever is in the container.

If you’re ever curious about what quality we’re playing at in Critical Listening mode, on the Now Playing screen while in your source of choice in the app, just tap on the Album art, and it will bring up the quality and format info.

How about Critical Listening mode for Windows Play-Fi application, connecting laptop running Tidal to Anthem AVM60 processor ? The Critical Listening mode on the PlayFi app for iPad and iPhone is easy enough to find, however I can’t seem to find it on the PlayFi app in Windows. Having the ability to stream hi-rez content from the likes of Tidal is now key as Tidal Windows app now supports MQA. Last question, any idea if and when PlayFi app will support resolutions beyond it’s current limitation of 24/96 ?

Hey Nathan, for now the PC app doesn’t support higher than CD quality output, though we are working on refreshing the U.I. for our Windows app, and in doing so, this will open the opportunity to implement this feature. Look forward to the updated U.I. a little later this year.

As for the app and its critical listening support, we did actually just update it to include support for resolutions up to 24 / 192. You should see that now in both iOS and Android.

If I select the Speakers (DTS PlayFi Audio Renderer) the music does play but the Lyngdorf says it’s still PCM 16b 44.1kHz.
Ideal obviously woud be through the Android app but I undertsand Tidal does not support that yet?
Any other ideas?

Currently the Windows app doesn’t support Hi Res audio, and Tidal Masters is also not supported within our applications for iOS or Android, so there’s not quite a way to play from that collection now without first doing a sample rate conversion on our platform, but we do have the intention of fully supporting the service as soon as is possible.

The thread above indicates Play-Fi has been “working on” this (or “intending” to provide it) for almost a year. I have a McIntosh system and am locked into Play-Fi. When will you enable me to use USB to stream Tidal Master?